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Special Election Coverage
By Michael Page | January 19, 2010
This special Senatorial election has gone from uninteresting to feverish. We have been bombarded with commercials as of late (a boon to local stations), and the national media has been flocking to the Bay State to cover this race which may have national implications.
However, just one broadcast station is on air with special coverage tonight. Here’s what’s going on as of the 8 PM hour.
WBZ: Ticker results showing on air, special webcast with Lisa, Jack, and Jon online.
WCVB: Full coverage on air with Ed and Heather anchoring, and streaming online.
WHDH: Ticker results showing on air.
WFXT: Um, is anyone in the building? They have a webcast set for 9 PM.
NECN: Full coverage on air.
In my mind this seems like a substantial local (and national) issue that deserves extended coverage. What do you think?
Ratings (Households)
Here are the ratings from Tuesday evening, as supplied by WCVB. The numbers show WCVB was the dominant source for news during the evening. The data also reflects pretty good numbers for WHDH, while WBZ pulled in lower numbers. This stands in contrast to general rating trends as of late. Fox 25′s 10 PM newscast suffered, likely because they all but ignored the election for much of the evening.
8 PM
WFXT (American Idol): 404,000
WBZ (NCIS): 240,000
WCVB (Election Coverage): 178,000
WHDH (Biggest Loser): 141,000
9 PM
WCVB (Election Coverage): 228,000
WBZ (NCIS/Election Coverage): 199,000
WHDH (Biggest Loser): 175,000
WFXT (Human Target): 130,000
10 PM
WCVB (Election Coverage): 224,000
WHDH (Election Coverage): 155,000
WBZ (Election Coverage): 123,000
WFXT (Election Coverage): 108,000
11 PM
WCVB: 122,000
WHDH: 121,000
WBZ: 76,000
WFXT: 45,000
Topics: WBZ (Channel 4), WCVB (Channel 5), WFXT (Channel 25), WHDH (Channel 7) | 27 Comments »
January 19th, 2010 at 9:29 pm
Let’s not forget NECN! They’re live with coverage too, and it’s been excellent so far.
January 19th, 2010 at 9:33 pm
Good point, I didn’t add them originally b/c I was going with the traditional stations. I just added them, however.
January 19th, 2010 at 9:51 pm
I’m very surprised that WBZ and WHDH aren’t all over this. Clearly this race has caught the interest of many people, and with the closeness of this race I have to imagine that many will be tuning in to see the results.
As for WFXT, I’m not the least bit surprised that they aren’t covering it. They always seem to be missing in action when there’s a big story.
January 19th, 2010 at 10:04 pm
I Cannot wait till this is over im so sick of the ad”s the constant blaming it has got to the point where i just don”t watch
January 19th, 2010 at 10:32 pm
Did WFXT even have a ticker? Being in Bristol County having WFXT blacked out, I wouldn’t know…
(of course, none of the Rhode Island stations down here are covering this either, so satellite users would need to wait…)
January 19th, 2010 at 10:34 pm
Not that I saw.
January 19th, 2010 at 10:44 pm
Wow, I almost forgot. WSBK has a newcast at 9PM, so they must’ve had a special coverage then….
January 19th, 2010 at 11:56 pm
NECN had a very good night, in fact several stations did well covering results. WCVB did well….but I did see a tear in Ed’s eye as the results came in.
January 20th, 2010 at 1:53 am
I like how stations are increasingly using the Internet to present live news coverage.
> WFXT: Um, is anyone in the building? <
Given the numerous Fox layoffs, I wonder whether channel 25 will become Boston's first fully automated station. WFXT is sinking fast.
January 20th, 2010 at 6:04 am
congrats to scott brown in becoming the new us seantor from mass
January 20th, 2010 at 9:35 am
All stations (except WFXT I think) did live coverage for about 15 sporadic minutes from 9:30 to 10:00, then they were all live straight from 10-11:30.
January 20th, 2010 at 12:19 pm
All I know is that my wife was bull because Ch 7 broke in to Coakleys speech right at the end of Biggest Loser….That really made for a pleasant evening!!!
January 20th, 2010 at 1:45 pm
Yeah that is always the risk the stations take with expanded coverage. Angry phone calls always seem to come in from those who want their regular programming!
January 20th, 2010 at 3:28 pm
I believe that Channel 5, NECN, and Channel 7 were your top 3 stations in the special election night coverage. Channel 4 and Channel 25 were 4th and 5th in my opinion. Tim Channel 4 and 38 both had a simulcast in election coverage from about 9:30PM on.
January 20th, 2010 at 5:06 pm
That’s so funny about 7 interrupting “the Biggest Loser” with their minimal coverage. I mean, if people are watching the show … let them watch the show. If they want election coverage, then they should turn to 5 who was just the best last night.
January 20th, 2010 at 8:38 pm
WBZ provided what I personally needed. I watched NCIS (a repeat – but new to me) with an eye (no pun intended!) on the ticker.
By the time the election got here I was so tired of the ads and all the talking heads giving their two cents. How many times do we need to listen to the same thing over and over?
The interesting thing will be seeing what happens (if anything) when Sen Brown gets seated…
January 20th, 2010 at 11:10 pm
It says alot about the voters–who were more in tune with American Idol at 8pm than they were with the results of a major election for the state. (maybe they were Ayla Brown supporters? LOL)
January 20th, 2010 at 11:45 pm
Well, Ayla did look awfully good last night. And, as Senator Elect Brown mentioned in his speech, she is available.
January 21st, 2010 at 1:16 am
At the Brown party at Park Plaza, two ch. 7 reporters took time to greet fans at the end of the night. Sorbonni Banerjee is even prettier in person and sweet, too. Matt Lorch was also very personable. Frank Luntz, the guy from FNC who does the focus groups, he was also very easy going. Jessica Van Sack from the Herald is stunning too.
January 21st, 2010 at 9:16 am
I’ve seen Sorboni Banerjee in person too and yes, she is stunning. I just wished she worked on a station that carried “news”. She can’t be taken seriously unless she gets off that channel. And I don’t know who Matt Lorch is, although I’m sure he’s a nice guy.
January 21st, 2010 at 10:54 pm
Pete Bouchard made reference to his ‘manhood’ when talking about snowfall totals (which, like him, is measured in inches). The Mediaite web site has this thoroughly embarrassing clip that I’m sure Bouchard wishes would just go away. Maybe he never got the memo that there’s a web site called ‘YouTube.’
January 22nd, 2010 at 2:40 am
Pete is one of the few reasons for watching 7, although generally not even enough to get me to watch. But, he is funny and I saw the clip on youtube. Big ole Pete Bouchard! So 7 News!
January 22nd, 2010 at 10:12 pm
As usual WCVB; is Number 1. Congrats to all at the extraordinary TV Station.
January 23rd, 2010 at 6:45 pm
NECN’s coverage with David Rubin and Kerry Healy was great. It was great to see Pags chief adviser slam Coakley’s campaign, and it was an interesting dynamic to see the strategist who beat Healy be next to her the whole night.
January 23rd, 2010 at 9:36 pm
Channel 5 numbers may be a little high for the reason I watched, which was to see the Gail Huff ( Scott Browns wife) scenario.
She did a great job at being a ghost during his campaign, I was curious to see if she was going to be involved in the victory.
And yes, I did think channel 5 took it a little overboard with the ” this is how professional we are” thing, I mean we were not buying and selling nuclear weapons, we were talking about an election and after all she is the guys wife.
January 24th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
I totally disagree. Channel 5 was totally appropriate. If you want to be taken seriously in the journalism business, you can’t have a candidate’s wife covering issues that might be considered political. It would totally taint the public’s trust in what they are doing there.
January 24th, 2010 at 10:12 pm
Channel 5′s numbers were fat because Ch5 covered the story from 8pm until 1135pm. I didn’t have to guess if they were on… and they did a solid job.
With all the cuts (witness ch25) we’re lucky to have a station like ch5. I hope the economy doesn’t take them down too!